


half of my soul

by hufflebee



Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: Angst, Declarations Of Love, M/M, Rescue, edom
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-02
Updated: 2017-12-02
Packaged: 2019-02-09 15:50:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,351
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12891300
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hufflebee/pseuds/hufflebee
Summary: Catarina falls back onto the couch, her legs seemingly giving out at Alec’s story. About Lorenzo summoning Asmodeus, the threats and the attacks, about Magnus being taken by his father. She just stares off into the distance for what feels like hours, and Alec can barely look at her, waiting, because she has every right to send him away, and he wouldn’t blame her if she did.“Why did you call?” she asks instead, her voice barely held together, even though her expression is trained into a neutral mask, something Alec recognizes very well.“I found a spell book that might help, but I can’t read all of it, and I obviously can’t perform any of it,” Alec says, handing Catarina the book. “I was hoping you could help me.”“Do what exactly?”“Get to Edom.”





	half of my soul

**Author's Note:**

> [my tumblr](https://www.hufflebee.tumblr.com)

Alec wakes with a shout, sweat making his clothes cling to him, and the only sounds in the room are his labored breathing and the faint traffic outside. On instinct, he reaches over to the other side of the bed, finding it cold and empty, and it hits him like a ton of bricks.

Magnus is gone.

 _No, not gone_ , Alec thinks, _just not here_. Not here because he’s in Edom, and then Alec is out of bed in a flash, picking up the spell book he’d been trying to decipher before he evidently fell asleep. He barely catches a glance of himself in the mirror, hair disheveled, clothes rumpled, eyes red from the tears and lack of sleep, and then he’s out the door, moving as fast as he can. The streets are too loud and too crowded, there are too many people just going on about their lives, but can’t really blame them, though, it’s not their world that had fallen apart right in front of them today.

Or was it yesterday, Alec thinks, realizing he doesn’t even know the time. It makes him hesitate, not only because of Catarina, but also because of Madzie, he doesn’t want her to see him like this, or worry her about Magnus, so he pulls out his phone, finding countless messages from Izzy, Luke, Maia, even a few from Simon. He ignores them all in favor of finding Catarina’s number and calling.

“Hello?”

She sounds awake enough, thankfully, albeit very confused.

“Hi, Catarina, it’s Alec.”

“I can see that, caller ID is a wondrous invention,” she says. “Everything okay?”

Alec opens his mouth to answer, but only a chocked off sound leaves his lips, and then Catarina asks, more urgently, “Is Magnus okay?”

It’s a punch in the gut, worse than any real one Alec has received, and he barely strings together the words to ask her if he can come over. She says yes, and only adds for him to be safe before hanging up. It takes Alec another few moments to remember how to move, how to keep going and not just crumble to pieces in the middle of the street, and then he’s running.

* * *

 Catarina falls back onto the couch, her legs seemingly giving out at Alec’s story. About Lorenzo summoning Asmodeus, the threats and the attacks, about Magnus being taken by his father. She just stares off into the distance for what feels like hours, and Alec can barely look at her, waiting, because she has every right to send him away, and he wouldn’t blame her if she did.

“Why did you call?” she asks instead, her voice barely held together, even though her expression is trained into a neutral mask, something Alec recognizes very well.

“I found a spell book that might help, but I can’t read all of it, and I obviously can’t perform any of it,” Alec says, handing Catarina the book. “I was hoping you could help me.”

“Do what exactly?”

“Get to Edom.”

Catarina’s mouth drops and she’s looking at him like she’s never seen him before.

“You… you want to go there? You want to go to Edom?”

“Yes,” Alec says, like it’s obvious, because it is. Or it is to him, at least, but Catarina stares at him, expression unchanging for a few breaths, and then she gives him a small smile.

“Not just a pretty face, then. Let me see that.”

* * *

 “Your phone has been ringing every 5 minutes since you got here, maybe checking in wouldn’t kill you,” Catarina scolds him a few hours later. She has been going through the spell book, as well as giving Alec instruction on finding other texts or ingredients that might help, and they’ve barely spoken during that time, both of them focused on the task at hand.

Now, however, Alec picks up his phone, Izzy’s name lighting up the screen.

“Hello?”

“Thank the Angel, Alec, I’ve been worried sick, where are you? Are you okay?”

“Catarina’s, and no, I’m not, but I will be once we figure this out.”

“Figure what out?”

“A way for me to get to Edom.”

The line is silent for a few seconds, and then Izzy whispers, “Alec, you can’t, it’s not possible. Especially not in any way that’s even in the same vicinity as safe for you.”

“I really could give a rat’s ass about my safety right now.”

“Alec-”

“Izzy,” he cuts her off, tone hard and determined. “I don’t care, and nothing you say will change that. He’s the love of my life, my family, and I will tear through Edom with my bare hands if I have to.”

“I know,” she says softly after a moment, resignation clear in her voice. “Let me know if you need anything.”

“Just make sure the Institute doesn’t fall apart, okay?”

“You got it, big brother. But do check in when you can, and remember to eat.”

“Roger that. Thank you, Izzy.”

They say their goodbyes, and Alec throws his phone on the far end of the desk, going back to the text in front of him. It’s only a few pages later that he hears a door open, and Madzie’s soft voice calling out to Catarina. Alec lifts his head just as Madzie enters the study, purple pajamas on, rubbing sleep out of her eyes, and then she spots him. A wide grin spreads across her face and she shouts his name as she runs towards him. He ducks down just in time to catch her, spinning her around a few times before setting her back down. He crouches so he’s at eye level with her, tries his best to smile as she asks him if he came to take her to that bookstore he mentioned the last time he and Magnus watched her.

“No, pumpkin, I’m here for work, Catarina and I have something to do, but next time, okay?”

“Okay,” she says. “Where’s Magnus?”

Alec freezes, even though the question sounds so innocent and it’s so expected, because it’s always Magnus and Alec, Alec and Magnus, and yet Alec can’t bring himself to open his mouth, but thankfully, Catarina speaks up from the other side of the room.

“He had some other business to attend to. Now, what would you like for breakfast, kiddo?”

“Pancakes!”

Catarina laughs and shakes her head, leading Madzie out of the study. Alec hears clamor and chatter outside, so similar to the sounds of early morning with Magnus, and the thought makes his chest ache, makes him turn back to the task at hand. A little while later, Cat comes back in, announces that Madzie is going to be out with Dot all day, and places a plate of pancakes by the book Alec is reading.

“Thank you,” he says after a stunned moment, and she just nods in response, going back to her own work.

* * *

Alec is unsure of how long it actually takes them to do it, but they figure out a way for him to get to Edom. Catarina says she needed a few hours to get everything ready, to call Dot in to help, because the ritual is too complex and requires too much magic for just her, before sending Alec away to prepare.

The Institute looks unchanged as ever when Alec enters, and he barely registers the people inside staring after him as he marches to his office. He opens the door, finding Izzy and Jace there, their voices dying out as they look at him. Izzy moves first, crossing the room and wrapping her arms around Alec. He hugs her back, pressing a feather light kiss to her hair, and then Jace speaks.

“Alec, this is too dangerous, you can’t do this.”

“I must have missed the part where I asked,” Alec says back, moving away from Izzy to get to the weapons closet.

“As your parabatai, I can’t let you do this.”

Alec stands up in an instant, and he sees Jace’s face flash with honest to the Angel fear as he takes in Alec’s expression.

“If you were a half decent parabatai, you would be able to tell how I’m feeling right now, and hell, if you were half a decent _friend_ , you would be helping me, because you would know how crucial Magnus is to me. But all you ever care about is yourself, and you never have a problem with me saving your reckless ass, and I have no clue where you got the idea that Magnus is anything less than the most important person in my life and that there is a single thing in this world that would keep me from trying to save him.”

Jace stares at him, apparently at a loss for words, and Alec just turns back to the weapons closet, pulling out his bow and quiver, checking for his stele, and then closing the doors of the closet. He turns to find Izzy picking something up from his desk, and he manages a faint smile when he realizes it’s two seraph blades, along with a thigh holster. She hands them to him, along with his gloves, and hugs him again.

“I love you, big brother,” she whispers into his chest.

“I love you, too.”

He smiles at her as they pull away, and then he’s out the door, barely sparing Jace a glance, not even slowing down as Jace calls out to him weakly. He does however, end up almost running into someone, and he stops just in time, lifting his gaze to find his mother standing in front of him.

“Alec,” she breathes out, and both of them are still for a moment before Maryse places a hand to his cheek. “Isabelle told me what happened. I’m sorry.”

He swallows his tears back, gives himself a second to compose his heart, and in those moments Maryse seems to take in his appearance, along with the weapons. He sees it click for her, what exactly he’s doing, and he expects her to try and stop him, a retort already rising in his throat, but she only gives him a sad smile.

“As a mother, I feel like I should try and stop you, but I won’t. You have always lived up to your name, to being a protector, to doing everything and anything to help your loved ones,” she says. “Just promise me you’ll be careful, Alec.”

“I will, I promise,” he whispers, shocked by his mother’s words, and then he hugs her briefly before continuing his path through the Institute.

* * *

 By the time he arrives at Cat’s, Dot is already there, the two of them working on preparing the ritual. He greets them when he walks in, then asks about Madzie.

“Luke offered to watch her,” Dot says. “And he said to wish you luck.”

“Thank you,” Alec says, and then he leaves them to their work, using his time to check his weapons and reapply his runes. He then sets his quiver down and starts checking if all the arrows are runed properly, even though he knows they are, he never puts arrows in his quiver before he applies the runes to them, but he has to keep himself busy, has to keep doing something. If he doesn’t, he fears he may fall apart, fall over the edge he’s been on since Magnus was taken; he fears that the adrenaline will fade and open the floodgates to the pain in his heart, pain that he knows would drown him in seconds.

As a Shadowhunter, especially once he decided to have a parabatai, he’s always been told that the pain of losing his parabatai would be catastrophic, that it would be the worst kind of pain he’d ever experience because it would be like his soul splitting in half. Now, after feeling his parabatai die, after feeling Magnus be ripped away from him, Alec knows that’s not true.

Because nothing, _nothing_ , comes close to the way he’s feeling right now, as if his soul has not only been split in half, but rather completely ripped to shreds, left scattered across Edom.

“Alec?”

He snaps his head up, finds Cat watching him, tired and worried, but he only gets up, puts all his arrows back into the quiver, and follows her to her and Dot’s work station. They wish him luck, hand him a bag of supplies, and quickly run him through what the ritual will feel like, and then they step away, magic blooming in their hands. 

* * *

 As soon as he opens his eyes, Alec knows the ritual worked. The red sky above him, the heat on his skin, and the vast wasteland around him can be nothing other than Edom. He gets up, pointlessly trying to get the dust off his clothes for a moment, and then checks his weapons, relieved that everything survived the ritual. Other than Asmodeus’s palace, there is nothing else in Edom besides caves and valleys infested with monsters. But as Alec looks up, he almost smiles at the faint outline of a kind of sun above him, recalling one of the texts he read on Edom when he first found out about Magnus’s father.

_Asmodeus’ palace rest in the middle of the realm of Edom, and can always be located by following the faint red sun._

He doesn’t know how far away he is from it though, how long it will take him to reach it, so he wastes no more time before starting his journey. A journey that turns out to be long and tedious, makes Alec almost giddy for when he encounters monsters because it’s at least something that lets him not think about the heaviness of his heart, the fatigue of his body. He only lets himself sleep once, for what feels like five minutes although it may be longer, and even that is plagued with nightmares, before he’s back on his feet.

When he spots the towers of the palace, he breaks into a run, cutting through the monsters in his way without much thought. When he reaches the outer walls, he circles them carefully, finding them very poorly guarded, but he chooses to take his time going around the guards. They don’t look like much, but even if they’re not, him killing them might make Asmodeus aware of his presence. He reapplies his stealth and soundless runes, and makes his way into the palace with little trouble.

He tries to think logically about where to go next, tries to think like a soldier, tries not to let himself picture Magnus locked up anywhere in this place. He treads carefully through the hallways until he finds a stairwell going down, figuring it’s his best bet right now. The path is dark, and while Alec knows it’s not smart, he pulls out a seraph blade, letting the faint blue light illuminate his path, even for a few steps at a time. There don’t seem to be any rooms down here, and Alec begins to wonder if he should head back, but there is something, something he can’t quite put his finger on, that makes him continue forward.

He reaches a turn, and then there is a demon in front of him. It wastes no time in attacking, managing to cut at Alec’s thigh before Alec can even blink, but then he drives the seraph blade into the demon’s belly, a horrifying scream filling the narrow hallway.

The demon doesn’t disintegrate, but it doesn’t move, and Alec decides to leave the blade inside it just in case. He applies an iratze over the wound on his thigh, which helps just barely, but he pays it little mind. Because a demon this far inside and beneath the palace has to be guarding something.

Or someone.

He pulls out the second seraph blade, moving more slowly and carefully than before, but it’s only a short while before he’s standing in front of a door. There is no knob or lock, the intricate design the only thing making it stand out from the walls. Stele in hand, Alec draws an unlock rune on the door, stepping away just in time, because the rune lights up, making the door fall back with a bang.

The room revealed is enveloped in red light coming through the small windows looking onto the realm beyond the palace, the walls are bare and damaged, and the room is empty except for the figure standing in the corner.

Magnus.

He’s in the same clothes as when Alec last saw him, but they are dusty and ripped, revealing the edges of bruises on Magnus’ skin, and he looks like he’s barely standing, knees slightly bent and shoulder hunched. His cat eyes stand out against his face, and he’s looking at Alec in disbelief.

“That’s just cruel,” he says, voice raspy and cracking, and he makes a movement as if to summon his magic, but nothing happens, causing a string of curses to leave Magnus’ lips. “You could at least invite me up before starting the hallucinations, father.”

It takes Alec a moment to realize what’s happening, and his heart breaks at the hollowness of Magnus’ voice, the resignation in it, but he makes himself step forward, slowly, carefully. Magnus watches him attentively, almost fearfully, like he’s expecting something to happen, something to hurt him, and Alec swears on the Angel he will kill Asmodeus if he ever gets the chance.

“Magnus,” Alec whispers. “It’s me. I’m not a hallucination. I’m here. I’m right here.”

Something about Alec’s words, maybe just that he spoke them at all, seems to surprise Magnus, and he warily steps forward. He’s close enough to touch now, but Alec doesn’t dare move. He waits, forces himself to stand still as Magnus steps another small step closer, as he lifts a hand to Alec’s cheek. The touch is soft and gentle, so careful, and Alec can’t help but lean into it, never taking his eyes off Magnus. Magnus’ expression grows into disbelief, and after a moment he whispers, “Alexander?”

“It’s me,” Alec says, and then he remembers a conversation they had a while back, after the whole nightmare with Valentine and Azazel. How they agreed upon a certain phrase to use if they were unsure of the other’s identity, to make sure nothing like that would ever happen again. “When things get crazy.”

“Don’t push me away,” Magnus whispers, and then a broken laugh breaks out of him, and he collapses in Alec’s arms, holding onto him like a lifeline. Sobs rip through the cell as Magnus cries, and Alec lets himself finally let go as well, lets his feelings overflow him, from the pain and heartbreak to the love and relief, and lets himself cry into the embrace.

“You came back to me,” Magnus says, almost like he can’t believe it, and it only makes Alec hold him tighter.

“Always,” Alec says. “We will always find our way back to each other.”

Magnus pulls back just enough for Alec to see his face, and he looks so tired, so worn down, and yet his smile is breathtaking, his eyes bright as he watches Alec. There are so many things Alec wants to tell him, ask him; wants to make sure Magnus is okay, wants to know where Asmodeus is so he can kill him for what he did to Magnus. He wants to tell him how being without him was like living without a soul, and that even though it hadn’t been that long, it had felt like a lifetime.

“I’m now absolutely positive that I can’t live without you,” Alec says, and it’s just the start of what he wants to say, but Magnus’ smile makes him think it’s perfectly enough, at least for now.

“Nor I without you. You are half of my soul, as the poets say,” Magnus says, barely getting the words out before Alec leans forward and kisses him, hard and messy, trying to pour all his love into the kiss. Magnus kisses him back just the same, and it’s feels like coming home.


End file.
